Location Location Commercial site selection

Location, Location, Location commercial site selection checklist

Site selection for your commercial business or industrial tract is key to many times, making it or breaking it. Location, Location, Location is always a critical part of your decision making process when moving your office to a new location to fit your demographic client base, be in close proximity to your office for easy and effective commutes and easy to get in and out for traffic flow.

Knowing the right resources that can assist with the site selection such as local economic development personnel, chamber of commerce, Department of Transportation (MoDot) for traffic counts, local government, department of revenue for sales tax records, and municipalities are always great resources.

As always be aware of many factors when you are shopping. Make yourself a shopping list so that you can stay focused and gather information as you go. Here is a checklist of items to research depending on your type of business or industry.

CHECKLIST

1. Location

2. Highway access

3. Location of utilities

4. Parking requirements or limitations

5. Commuter distance for your current employees or base of pull

6. Cost per acre compared to other locations

7. Census count

8. Traffic counts during various times of day

9. Drainage issues for possible flash flooding (Some cities have drainage requirements on site selection which can add thousands of dollars to building costs including driveway and parking areas due to lack of water absorption and need for retention ponds, etc.)

10.Zoning allowance or what tolerance does area have for variance requests, time involved to get it approved

11. Grants or tax credits for improvements to land

12. Incoming competitors in surrounding area

13. Location of already built property that can be converted with more flexibility

Either way you decide, make sure you take good notes, ask lots of questions and do your footwork to get your due diligence done quickly and effectively.